Pixies, one the most influential, pioneering bands have announced their return to Manchester to perform their hugely acclaimed albums Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde as part of a major European tour.
Pixies third studio album, Bossanova released in 1990 was produced by Gil Norton, with whom the band collaborated on their Platinum-selling second album Doolittle, Bossanova was recorded in Los Angeles as opposed to Pixies’ Boston base (with the exception of the track “Blown Away” that was recorded at the Hansa Ton studio in Berlin during a European tour in 1989).
Bossanova features the singles “Allison” (a tribute to jazz and blues pianist Mose Allison), “Dig For Fire,” and “Velouria” (#4 on Billboard’s Alternative chart), plus the first cover to be included on a Pixies’ album, “Cecilia Ann” (originally by The Surftones). Bossanova showed a less primal side to the band, with surf and space rock rising to the fore. Lyrically, Black Francis is even more cryptic with recurring sci-fi theme running throughout, which in turn influenced Vaughan Oliver’s classic planet design for the cover.
Pixies 1991 album, Trompe Le Monde, bookended a golden run of landmark records. Translated from French to mean “fool the world,” Trompe Le Monde showed the band still restless to push their sound forward. Recorded between Burbank, Paris, and London, with producer Gil Norton again at the controls, their fourth album is arguably their most playful, with Black Francis’s lyrics on UFOs and conspiracy theories keeping things weird while power pop creeps in to amplify the space rock established on predecessor Bossanova.
Featuring singles “Planet of Sound,” “Alec Eiffel,” “Letter to Memphis,” and a flawless cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Head On,” Trompe Le Monde goes full throttle with 15 tracks coming in a quickfire 40-minute salvo. Receiving critical praise at the time and being supported by a huge tour that included playing stadiums with U2, it also proved to be the end of act one for the band, with them taking over a decade before returning to the stage together. A brilliant record, Trompe Le Monde sounds just as fresh as it did 32 years ago.
Pixies celebration of these two iconic albums will see them perform across Europe in 2024.
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